The Reason
by Izaranna
Summary: -AU-Strange things happen for a reason. Just not always good ones. I can walk now, I can speak and shout and yell at the world. But tomorrow, I won't be able to do any of those things. I am Obito, the outcast and the unwanted. I am exiled and alone. I am mute and crippled. Welcome to my world.
1. The Dawning Comprehension: The Prologue

**(A/N: My first try at something _not_ humor. Please tell me how I can improve.)**

* * *

Sleepy dark eyes blinked into awareness.

The first thing they registered was white. Plain solid mass of white.

Then they saw the whirring machines. The sound was annoying.

He tried to block it out with his hands. It was then that the eyes saw the tubes attached to his arms and to the machines.

Sight and sound gave him this much information.

When the smell of the place reached his nose, he felt nauseated.

The smell of – he tried to remember what – anesthetic. And chlorine.

He was dimly aware that he was lying on a bed.

A hospital? Something moved. His eyes shifted and saw a woman wearing white.

The white was unbearable.

_I hate white._

The thought startled him. That was a lot of distaste for a colour.

"Oh, you're awake! How do you feel?" the white woman said.

Instead of answering the question, he blinked.

Everything came into sharp focus and he jolted upright.

"You shouldn't move so suddenly! You could hurt yourself."

She immediately came to his side and tried to push him back onto the bed.

He struggled and told her to stop. But no sound came out.

She looked at him then, and his eyes would forever remember that look of pity, the look he scorned, the look that haunted him till the day he died.

"I'm sorry, the shock of the accident left you traumatized. You can't speak anymore."

His heart seized up.

_Why?_

Uchiha Obito, outcast and outsider. Exiled and alone. He couldn't speak anymore.


	2. Period of Transcendence: The Middle

**_"What is the reason we live?" _**

* * *

In time, he found out that it wasn't just his voice, it was his leg too. He couldn't walk either.

But it was just dimly registered. The nurse came everyday and changed his bedding and helped him change his clothes. She helped him work his muscles so that they didn't die on him too. She was called Nohara Rin, and he thought the name suited her.

Of course, he couldn't tell her, now could he?

She was always cheerful, always trying to get him to believe that he would be fine, and that it was only temporary. He would be back on his feet in no time. And he'd be able to shout in joy about it. He smile weakly, showing that he appreciated the gesture, but it wasn't working.

She persevered. She brought him the funniest flowers imaginable. Because whenever you tried to smell them, it squirted water on you. She brought him novels to read, telling him that they were her favourite. He was surprised that they weren't romance or sickeningly girly. She pouted and said 'that's what he said.'

He chuckled silently. She said he looked better when he laughed.

"You should do it more often. You look like an angel when you do."

He stuck his tongue out at her and made a disgusted face. She giggled. He wondered when he'd be able to tell her the same thing.

So with all these things, it wasn't surprising that he fell in love with her.

And he was going to tell her. He was going to walk up to her, and he would tell her with his own voice. Till then, he was content listening to her voice coaxing him to move his left leg forward.


	3. The Consequences of actions: Retribution

**We may love the wrong person, cry for the wrong reasons, but one thing is certain, mistakes help us find the right person.**

The days flew by and weeks turned into months that turned into half a year. Rin came in everyday and changed his bedding, helped change his clothes, changed his painkiller dosage and changed his frown into a smile.

People came in and asked him weird questions.

'Did you purposely jump in front of that car sir?' Yes, yes he had. So he nodded. He saw Rin frown. He opened his mouth to tell her why, but he remembered that no sound would come out.

'Why sir? Were you suicidal?' Yes he was. His parents had told him he had suicidal tendencies when anyone was in danger. Hero in the novels and suicidal in real life. Ironic.

He nodded. They left.

Rin sighed softly and he pretended not to hear. He might cry if he didn't. She thought the worst of him. Why couldn't he tell her the truth?

A woman wearing a black tracksuit came into his hospital room and looked at him with the look he associated with serial killers. She wanted him dead. She was apparently, the wife of the driver. She had two boys who had just begun kindergarten and he had 'taken their father away from them!'. He wished he could tell her why he had done it. He really did. He hated seeing people in so much pain. There had been a little girl crying for her mother on the streets that day. He had told her that her mom was right there across the street. She thanked him with this adorable smile and walked onto the street. Just when the lights had turned green. He jumped in to save her life. And he had. But that didn't make it up to the drivers loved one now did it?

He didn't know how to say sorry. So he hugged her. And she cried in his arms and weakly punched him and drenched his hospital gown in tears. He merely stroked her hair and wished he could murmur comforting words. But he couldn't.

Rin watched and then, a few days later, she asked him "Why did you jump in front of that car? I don't believe you when you say it's because you were suicidal." She said it with such conviction and trust that his eyes filled with tears. He opened his mouth without thinking and tried to say sorry.

"ah-rii"

She looked at him with amazement and he didn't even notice. He was too busy crying. From relief that he could make sounds or from joy that she trusted him, even he didn't know.


End file.
